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"We each live in a somewhat unique world of our own psychological content."
- Philip K. Dick
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Moving Roadway |
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A roadway that is in motion, with seats and kiosks, that goes around curves. |
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This is the earliest reference to this topic that I know about.
| It was not a roadway at
all, as Graham understood such things, for in the
nineteenth century the only roads and streets were
beaten tracks of motionless earth, jostling rivulets of
vehicles between narrow footways. But this roadway
was three hundred feet across, and it moved; it moved,
all save the middle, the lowest part. For a moment,
the motion dazzled his mind. Then he understood.
Under the balcony this extraordinary roadway ran
swiftly to Graham's right, an endless flow rushing
along as fast as a nineteenth century express train, an
endless platform of narrow transverse overlapping
slats with little interspaces that permitted it to follow
the curvatures of the street. Upon it were seats, and
here and there little kiosks, but they swept by too
swiftly for him to see what might be therein. From
this nearest and swiftest platform a series of others
descended to the centre of the space. Each moved to
the right, each perceptibly slower than the one above
it, but the difference in pace was small enough to permit
anyone to step from any platform to the one adjacent,
and so walk uninterruptedly from the swiftest to
the motionless middle way. Beyond this middle way
was another series of endless platforms rushing with
varying pace to Graham's left. And seated in crowds
upon the two widest and swiftest platforms, or stepping
from one to another down the steps, or swarming
over the central space, was an innumerable and
wonderfully diversified multitude of people. |
From When the Sleeper Wakes,
by H.G. Wells.
Published by Unknown in 1899
Additional resources -
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This reference is a generation earlier than Heinlein's The Roads Must Roll. See rolling road.
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